Friday, March 16, 2012

Guest Blog & Giveaway: Croak by Gina Damico

UFI welcomes Gina Damico Author of Croak. Thanks for Joining us!!

What do you do when your not writing?

A large percentage of my day is spent writing, though I wish I could say that more of it was spent on actual book writing. Because there is much more that goes into being a writer than just getting to ride unicorns and slide down rainbows in Pretend Land all day. I write emails. I write blog posts. I write interviews and guest posts for totally awesome bloggers and their equally awesome readers. I write letters to Santa Claus, asking him yet again to please bring a puppy this year, as I have since I was five. I write tickets for cars that are illegally parked. I do not, however, write recipes. That would be bad for the whole world.

So what do I do when I'm not writing? Several lame things!
---I watch TV. Way too much, considering the fact that I just lodged a major complaint about not having enough time to write. Caught in my web of LIES.
---At the moment I'm trying to fix up my home office to be somewhat habitable. But at the rate I'm going, this will most assuredly never happen. I spent one day - yes, an entire day - trying to pick out a desk chair. And yesterday I bought a nice potted plant, which not five minutes ago I just knocked all over the floor.
---I sweep spilled dirt off my office floor.
---I visit the post office and chat with Tess, my favorite pink-haired postal worker. She knows me by my return address labels. Yeah. I go there a LOT.
---I try to go grocery shopping, then fall into a pile of fail, then claw my way out, then return home empty-handed because for some reason I cannot get my act together in this particular realm of adult life.
---I chase my cats around the house.
---I go to the gym. Once a month.

And a few unlame things:
---I play board games with friends. Surprising, right? I have friends!
---I read at least a hundred pages a day of whatever book I'm devouring.
---I knit and crochet. I make clothes for myself and other people, and I make weird little monsters just for my own amusement.
---I join an impromptu choreographed parade and sing all the way down the center of town, a la Ferris Bueller.

Thanks for having me, and happy reaping reading! 
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I grew up under four feet of snow in Syracuse, New York. I received a degree in theater and sociology from Boston College, where I was active with the Committee for Creative Enactments, a murder mystery improv comedy troupe, which may or may not have sparked an interest in wildly improbable bloodshed. I have since worked as a tour guide, transcriptionist, theater house manager, scenic artist, movie extra, office troll, retail monkey, yarn hawker and breadmonger. Croak is my first novel. I live in Boston with my husband, two cats, and a closet full of black hoodies.
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Find Gina and her books
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Croak
Croak #1
March 20, 2012
Sixteen-year-old Lex Bartleby has sucker-punched her last classmate. Fed up with her punkish, wild behavior, her parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape. But Uncle Mort’s true occupation is much dirtier than that of shoveling manure.

He’s a Grim Reaper. And he’s going to teach her the family business.

Lex quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated entirely by reapers who deliver souls from this life to the next. Along with her infuriating yet intriguing partner Driggs and a rockstar crew of fellow Grim apprentices, Lex is soon zapping her Targets like a natural born Killer.

Yet her innate ability morphs into an unchecked desire for justice—or is it vengeance?—whenever she’s forced to Kill a murder victim, craving to stop the attackers before they can strike again. So when people start to die—that is, people who aren’t supposed to be dying, people who have committed grievous crimes against the innocent—Lex’s curiosity is piqued. Her obsession grows as the bodies pile up, and a troubling question begins to swirl through her mind: if she succeeds in tracking down the murderer, will she stop the carnage—or will she ditch Croak and join in?
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 US/Canada only.

Cover Reveal: Perfection by J.L. Spelbring

*Available May 7, 2013*


Title: Perfection
Author: J.L. Spelbring
Publisher: Spencer Hill Press
ISBN: 978-1-937053-34-5
Release Date: May 7, 2013
Formats: paper and e-book

The personification of Aryan purity, Ellyssa's spent her whole life under her creator's strict training and guidance; her purpose is to eradicate inferior beings. She was genetically engineered to be the perfect soldier: strong, intelligent, unemotional, and telepathic.

Only Ellyssa isn't perfect.

Ellyssa feels emotions--a fact she's spent her life concealing. Until she encounters the epitome of inferiority: a dark-haired boy raised among renegades hiding since the Nazis won the war a century ago. He speaks to her telepathically, pushing thoughts into her mind, despite the impossibility of such a substandard person having psychic abilities.

But he does.

His unspoken words and visions of a place she's never visited make Ellyssa question her creator. Confused and afraid her secret will be discovered, Ellyssa runs away, embarking on a journey where she discovers there is more to her than perfection.